{"id":318685,"date":"2026-08-11T15:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318685\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T15:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:18:11","slug":"nyc-boat-survivor-held-baby-just-before-killed-with-mom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318685\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC boat survivor held baby just before killed with mom"},"content":{"rendered":"

A survivor of the deadly boat capsize in New York Harbor<\/a> has described how she held the baby killed alongside her mom just moments before tragedy struck.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Velez was handed Antonella Garcia as the five-month-old girl\u2019s mom Sara Sanchez<\/a>, 27, tried to get a life jacket \u2014 even though prosecutors say there were no child-sized ones available, and the 14 friends on board were not made to wear them.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a very happy girl. She didn\u2019t cry the whole way,\u201d Elizabeth Velez told NBC New York<\/a> of the tot killed with her mom moments later when the motorboat flipped off the coast of Liberty Island late Saturday.<\/p>\n

Sara Sanchez, 27, her husband, Andres Garcia, and 5-month-old daughter, Antonella Garcia. Facebook \/ Andres Garcia<\/p>\n

The group \u2014 including the baby\u2019s dad, Sachnez\u2019s 29-year-old husband Andres Garcia<\/a> \u2014 to celebrate the birthday of someone in their church congregation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a celebration, and it ended in tragedy,\u201d Velez said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe celebrated, we sang happy birthday to the person, and well, it was very, very nice,\u201d she said of the shared joy before tragedy struck around three hours into their trip.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, just before 10:30 p.m., the boat was caught in a swell and overturned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat current came, and it was strong. I closed my eyes, and there was no time for anything,\u201d said Velez.<\/p>\n

When she finally surfaced, she could see the rest of their group \u2014 except Sanchez and Antonella.<\/p>\n

The survivors were rescued from New York Harbor on Saturday night. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n

The boat\u2019s captain, Manuel Hernandez<\/a>, is accused of knowingly operating the vessel with an infant on board without ensuring the child was wearing a life vest, prosecutors alleged on Monday.<\/p>\n

Follow the latest on the boat crash off Liberty Island in New York Harbor:<\/p>\n

The vessel, which had a capacity of 10, was dangerously overcrowded and had no child- or infant-sized life vests, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Hernandez was charged with two counts of misconduct<\/a> and neglect of a ship officer resulting in death.<\/p>\n

The motorboat was dangerously overcrowded when it overturned. Gregory P. Mango for NY Post<\/p>\n

He was not required to enter a plea and was released on $50,000 bail.<\/p>\n

If convicted on both charges, Hernandez faces up to 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A survivor of the deadly boat capsize in New York Harbor has described how she held the baby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8948,1015,57,9,4180,56,63,65,64,103,23589,58,69873],"class_list":["post-318685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-boat-crashes","tag-deaths","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-harbor","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nypd","tag-statue-of-liberty","tag-us-news","tag-water-rescue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}